Dimensions: 61 x 42 cm
other titles: Tall flacon with flowers, ceramic vase, apples; Vase de fleurs, pommes, ca.1903; on the reverse, stamp of the artist's legacy; on the painting loom, inventory sticker of Arthur G.Altschul's collection and collector's stamp
Provenance
collection of Eugenia Slevinska, Paris
Primel family, Paris and Tours
Arthur G. Altschul (1920-2002), New York, deposit in the collection of Wojciech Fibak since the 1980s
Sotheby's, New York, November 2006
Exhibited
August Zamoyski. Thinking in Stone, Centre for Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu, Toruń, June 21-September 1, 2024
Władysław Ślewiński. From Pont Aven to Kazimierz, District Museum in Sandomierz, October 8, 2009 - August 10, 2010.
Polish Painting in the Collection of Ewa and Wojciech Fibak, National Museum in Warsaw, May 23-August 9, 1992; National Museum in Poznań, August 22-October 25, 1992
Literature
New Generation and Classics of Modernity from the Collection of Wojciech Fibak, exhibition catalog, Centre for Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu, ed. Krzysztof Stanisławski, Anna Kompanowska, Toruń 2024, p. 294 (il.).
On the Track of Perfection. Selected works from the collection of Wojciech Fibak, exhibition catalog, State Art Gallery, Sopot 2022, p. 36 (il.)
Contemporary Art from the Collection of Wojciech Fibak, exhibition catalog, Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum, ed. by Michał F. Woźniak, Bydgoszcz 2018, p. 43 (il.)
Polish Painting in the Collection of Ewa and Wojciech Fibak, exhibition catalog, National Museum in Warsaw, National Museum in Poznań, Warsaw 1992, p. 36 (ill.)
Władysława Jaworska, Władysław Ślewiński, Warsaw 1991, p. 145 (ill.)
Władysława Jaworska, Władysław Ślewiński 1854-1918. monographic exhibition, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 1983, p. 94, cat. no. 114, ill. 96
Biography
Władysław Ślewiński came from a landed, Mazovian family. In 1875 he began his education at an agricultural school in Radom. He briefly attended Wojciech Gerson's Drawing School in Warsaw, probably at the urging of his relative Jozef Chelmonski. He managed the Pilaszkowice estate in the Lublin region inherited from his mother, which he brought to financial ruin. In the rush of 1888, he left Poland for Paris, escaping the sequester of the Internal Revenue Service. He quickly found his way into the circle of modern French art: he studied at the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi, and hung out among the artistic bohemians who gathered at the cremerie Chez Madame Charlotte in Montparnassie. Among his acquaintances were Paul Gauguin, Alphonse Mucha and August Strindberg. At the 1889 Synthetist exhibition at Café Volpini, he became acquainted with the circle and art of Gauguin's disciples. He befriended the artist and in 1889-96 traveled to Pont-Aven in Brittany, joining the ranks of the art colony there. He married the Russian painter Eugenia Shevtsova. From 1896 he lived in Le Pouldu in Brittany. The years 1905-10 mark the artist's stay in Poland: there is an exhibition of his works in Warsaw's Aleksander Krywult Salon, Ślewiński goes to Cracow, stays in Poronin, creating within the local art colony centered around Jan Kasprowicz, and establishes an art school on Polna Street in Warsaw. In 1910 he left Poland and for the rest of his life lived in a house called "castle" in Doëlan, Brittany. Under the influence of Gauguin and the syntheticism of the Pont-Aven school, Ślewiński created a personal painting formula situated within the painting of European Symbolism. In the history of Polish art, his painting is classified as part of Young Poland. Ślewiński practiced almost exclusively oil painting - he created intimate still lifes, portraits, landscapes. A unique phenomenon in his oeuvre is a series of seascapes from the Breton coast, executed since the 1890s.
